Software Development Engineer III, Advertising Technology

Expedia Group•Chicago, IL

4d•$146,000 - $204,500•Hybrid

About The Position

Expedia Group Advertising builds the platforms and experiences that connect advertisers with millions of travelers across the globe. Our mission is to help partners reach the right traveler with the right message at the right time — through intuitive advertiser experiences, high-performance ad delivery systems, and intelligent, AI-powered optimization. We’re seeking a Software Development Engineer III to join our Advertising Technology team. You’ll build and operate real-time ad delivery systems that power ad ranking, auctions, bidding, and budget enforcement at scale. These services sit on the critical path of ad delivery, where low latency, correctness, and reliability directly impact revenue, advertiser ROI, and traveler experience. You’ll work with Product, Machine Learning, Data Science, and Platform teams to integrate with APIs and microservices, bring ML-driven signals into high-throughput backend services, and scale the platform as the business grows.

Requirements

Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field
5+ years of experience in backend software development
Experience working with data-driven systems, ML-powered features, or A/B experimentation platforms
Strong proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Java, Kotlin)
Experience building and deploying backend APIs (e.g. gRPC) and streaming or batch data processing services (e.g., Flink, Spark) in cloud environments
Solid understanding of distributed systems, data flows, and operational best practices

Nice To Haves

Experience with search and retrieval systems, including relevance ranking, vector databases, embeddings, or AI/semantic search
Experience designing and implementing agent-to-agent (A2A) and multi-agent AI systems
Background in ads, marketplaces, e-commerce, or travel platforms

Responsibilities

Optimize bidding, ranking and pacing for guaranteed and non-guaranteed ad delivery to surface more relevant ads and expand advertiser reach to travelers
Build and scale systems that support ad serving and ad selection across Expedia Group’s advertising network
Apply strong software design principles, algorithms, and data structures to build scalable, low-latency, high-throughput services.
Work closely with Product, ML data scientists and data teams on features such as relevance optimization, targeting, and performance modeling
Advocate for high-quality code, automated testing, and strong observability practices
Participate in operational reviews and drive continuous improvement
Mentor junior engineers, lead design discussions, and help elevate the technical bar of the team